Labour pledge to renationalise railways within five years [Video]

Labour will pledge to renationalise the railways if elected, in what the party will call the “biggest overhaul to our railways in a generation.”

A Labour government would expect to transfer rail networks to public ownership within its first term by folding existing private passenger rail contracts into a new body as they expire, shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh will say at a launch event on Thursday.

The plan will nationalise the network “without the taxpayer paying a penny in compensation costs”, the party will say.

The Government’s own proposals for rail reform, published in a draft Bill in February, include the creation of a new public sector body named Great British Railways (GBR) to hold responsibility for rail infrastructure and awarding contracts to operate trains.

But a Labour government would create a “unified, publicly owned, accountable and arm’s length” version of GBR …